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Instagram Influencer Business Plan [Sample Template]

Are you about starting an influencer marketing agency? If YES, here is a detailed sample Instagram influencer business plan template & feasibility report you can use for FREE.

Individuals who have created a big and engaged following on Instagram are known as ‘influencers’, especially because their followers idolize them and respect their opinion. These people may have acquired a loyal following due to their lifestyle, their job or hobby, the clothes they wear or the stories they tell.

This market of influencers is very large and diverse, meaning almost any brand has the potential to utilize Instagram influencer marketing for their industry.

Why Start an Influencer Marketing Agency?

Reports have it that the emergence of Instagram influencers opened up massive opportunities for businesses looking to authentically market their products or services to their target audience, and thus the ‘paid post’ phenomenon was born.

Initially, it was enough for a brand to send an influencer one of their products as a gift, in return for them to post about it on their profile. But this changed with the rapid growth of the space and competition, after influencers understood they could not only gain free products, but actually charge brands for the services they provide.

Influencer marketing enable brands to market to their target audience in a way that feels far more genuine than traditional advertising. Instead of selling directly to consumers, they establish relationships with influencers who can sell for them.

Instagram influencers have a strong and loyal relationship with their followers, as they share many aspects of their lives with them. This leads us to feel like we know them personally, so when an influencer we like recommends something, we listen as we would if it were a friend.

With 800 million active users, Instagram has become the platform of choice for influencer marketing. 72% of users said they have made fashion, beauty or style-related purchases after seeing something on the app, proving its power in the digital marketing landscape of 2019.

Meanwhile, there’s no strict criteria for being classed as an Instagram influencer. Any user who has a fairly high engaged following will have an influence over them and this is a valuable marketing proposition for brands.

A Sample Instagram Influencer Business Plan Template

1. Industry Overview

Instagram Influencer Marketing has grown to over 1 billion users with no signs of slowing down. This massive growth is due in part to the massive popularity of Instagram Stories, which overtook Snapchat Stories in 2017 and now has over 500 million daily users.

Instagram has also over the years successfully developed a thriving influencer community and provided valuable audience insights to spark the interest of brands.

Although, YouTube maintains its pace as a powerful influencer channel, sharing photos with the click of a button made Instagram highly accessible to the average individual, and led to the rapid growth of content creators (and even small-scale “micro-influencers” have been able to cash in).

Today, Instagram is ranked as the #1 most strategically important social media channel for influencer marketing. This social platform continues to launch new formats such as IGTV, and new features such as the shoppable Instagram functionalities, which have embedded Instagram into the shopping journey.

Even with this rapid growth and innovation, Instagram has also experienced its share of challenges, such as combating fake followers, bots, and other fraudulent activity. In spite of all these, every sign points to the continued growth of the market in coming years.

Reports in 2019 has it that 89% of marketers say Instagram is strategically important to their influencer marketing strategy, as it is higher than any other social media channel in the industry. Instagram influencers today have the power to shape cultural trends and sell out products and are a major boon to brands looking to reach new audiences.

Thanks to Instagram’s consistent popularity, a wide range of Instagram influencer tiers are available to work with, and the relative ease of sponsoring Instagram content has undoubtedly propelled influencer marketing into the mainstream.

2. Executive Summary

Way Better Ads (WBA) will provide online marketing services to companies and individuals that are looking to infuse social media marketing techniques into their marketing plans.

According to reports, the booming growth of social media has led to the rise of the influencer marketing industry, which is expected to take up a $5 to 10 billion share in advertising by 2022. Instagram specifically is positioned to play an important role.

With over 800 million monthly active users and a daily active user base of 200 million users on Instagram Stories alone, Instagram has a far-reaching audience that contributes a massive amount of content everyday. Way Better Ads (WBA) will be providing its clients the best possible approach and resources in planning and implementing a successful social media advertisement for their clients.

Our services will cut through the mumbo jumbo of mass marketing, increase sales, and enhance customer satisfaction with our clients businesses. Our plan is to first understand the needs of each client and strive to create the best possible message targeted at the right crowd.

We hope to exceed our customers’ expectations in the advertisement industry. Our job at Way Better Ads will be to design, create, test and deploy adequate social media strategies that will boost our clients business and help them reach their customers effectively.

Way Better Ads owners, Manse Woods and Bright Connor can boast of seventeen years of experience in the Advertising and marketing industry between them. They understand the growing importance of social media marketing having been experts in this field for the past decade.

As with any new business, we at WBA recognizes the risks we will be facing. We are a new company and as such, we will need to meet market acceptance. To that end, the company is working to determine trends in the Internet industry, the needs of the customer, and how best to address these needs.

Our aim is to compete favourably as a thriving company in the social media influencer industry. It is clear that Instagram represents an immense share of the influencer marketing industry, that is why our plan is to start with Instagram and expand our connections and awareness to other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

3. Our Products and Services

Way Better Ads will offer services that will propel our clients into the thoughts of their own clients. We have a good collection of Instagram influencers like Craig Mount who boast of over 2 million Instagram followers and Sydney Rinse who is well known as an environmental advocate with over 900,000 loyal followers on Instagram.

We will design, build, test and deploy social media advertising campaigns on behalf of our clients. We will also report the progress of the campaign in real-time to provide our customers maximum flexibility.

We also plan to analyse the success of each campaign and also expand our own audience during the process. The services we plan to offer will cover social media marketing in its entirety, from original concept to post-campaign evaluation. The services include the following:

  • Conduct Survey
  • Ad Designing
  • Plan testing
  • Campaign implementation
  • Tracking the campaign’s progress in real-time
  • Instant measurability for ROI analysis
  • Post-campaign analysis
  • Other related media and advertising consulting services

4. Our Mission and Vision Statement

  • At Way Better Ads, our vision is to provide an online marketing brand that links companies and their products to their clients in different locations.
  • Our mission is to offer our customers the best deigns and resources in planning and implementing a successful social media advertisement.
  • We will offer professional and highly creative, result oriented social media advertising services and other related advisory services.

Our Business Structure

At Way Better Ads, we plan to establish an environment that encourages creativity and achievement. Our management at Way Better Ads is highly experienced and qualified. We are very committed to only engaging the services of well-known influencers in our online space.

We plan to hire individuals who are very focused and zealous to achieve our desired goals and provide adequate services to our clients. We plan to start with the following business structure;

  • Chief Executive Officer
  • Creative Director
  • Marketing and Advertisement manager
  • Human Resources and Admin Manager
  • Sales and Marketing manager
  • Accountant
  • Content designer and technical head
  • Client Service Executive

5. Job Roles and Responsibilities

Chief Executive Officer

  • Tasked with building the firm’s effectiveness by recruiting, selecting, orienting, training, coaching, counselling, and disciplining managers; communicating values, strategies, and objectives; assigning accountabilities; planning, monitoring, and appraising job results
  • Tasked with providing direction for the business
  • Will also be tasked with creating, communicating, and implementing the organization’s vision, mission, and overall direction – i.e. leading the development and implementation of the overall organization’s strategy.
  • Tasked with signing checks and documents on behalf of the company
  • Evaluates the success of the organization

Creative Director

  • Works as the project manager of the organization; works directly with employees
  • Tasked with designing advertising concepts and winning business proposals for the organization
  • Tasked with copy writing and laying out chronological advertisement plans
  • Tasked with developing strategic plan by studying technological and financial opportunities; presenting assumptions; recommending objectives.
  • Tasked with accomplishing subsidiary objectives by establishing plans, budgets, and results measurements; allocating resources; reviewing progress; making mid-course corrections.
  • Should be able to coordinate efforts by establishing procurement, production, marketing, field, and technical services policies and practices; coordinating actions with corporate staff.
  • Tasked with building company image by collaborating with customers, government, community organizations, and employees; enforcing ethical business practices.
  • Obligated to maintain quality service by establishing and enforcing organization standards.
  • Tasked with making sure that the organization work in line with international best practices.

Marketing and Advertisement manager

  • Tasked with handling media planning, buying & representation
  • Tasked with creating advertising campaigns
  • Handle other related media and advertising advisory and consulting services

Human Resources and Admin Manager

  • Tasked with overseeing the smooth running of HR and administrative tasks for the organization
  • Will have to define job positions for recruitment and managing interviewing process
  • Tasked with carrying out induction for new team members
  • Tasked with training, evaluation and assessment of employees
  • Oversee the smooth running of the daily office.

Sales and Marketing Manager

  • Tasked with managing external research and coordinate all the internal sources of information to retain the organizations’ best customers and attract new ones
  • Obligated to model demographic information and analyse the volumes of transactional data generated by customers
  • Should be able to identify development opportunities; follows up on development leads and contacts
  • Writing winning proposal documents, negotiate fees and rates in line with organizations’ policy
  • Tasked with handling business research, market surveys and feasibility studies for clients
  • Tasked with supervising implementation, advocate for the customer’s needs, and communicate with clients
  • Create new markets cum businesses for the organization
  • Empower and motivates the sales team to meet and surpass agreed targets

Accountant

  • Tasked with preparing financial reports, budgets, and financial statements for the organization
  • Tasked with providing the Companies management with financial analyses, development budgets, and accounting reports
  • Tasked with financial forecasting and risks analysis
  • Should be able to perform cash management, general ledger accounting, and financial reporting for one or more properties.
  • Tasked with developing and managing financial systems and policies
  • Tasked with administering payrolls
  • Ensuring compliance with taxation legislation
  • Handles all financial transactions for Way Better Ads
  • Serves as internal auditor for Way Better Ads

Content designer and technical head

  • Tasked with creating contents for the organization as it relates to advertising
  • Tasked with creating content / buzz words that will help attract traffics
  • Tasked with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Tasked with engaging internet users to get help statistics and leads

Client Service Executive

  • Tasked with welcoming clients and potential clients by greeting them in person, online or on the telephone; answering or directing inquiries.
  • Makes sure that all contacts with clients (e-mail, walk-In centre, SMS or phone) provides the client with a personalized customer service experience of the highest level
  • Through interaction with clients on the phone, uses every opportunity to build client’s interest in the company’s products and services
  • Manages administrative duties assigned by the creative director in an effective and timely manner
  • Consistently stays abreast of any new information on the organizations’ products, promotional campaigns etc. to ensure accurate and helpful information are supplied to clients when they make enquiries.

6. SWOT Analysis

In the past few years, the Internet has undergone a major metamorphosis. From an obscure network used by a limited number of academics and researchers, the Internet has been transformed into a global Web of more than 100 million interconnected computers encompassing users from all walks of life. We understand this at Way Better Ads and we plan not to leave any stone untouched in securing a substantial market share in our industry.

We have taken our time to analyse our market and also come up with a well detailed SWOT analysis that buttresses our internal strengths and risks. Way Better Ads hired the services of Concise Consults, and coupled with our management, they analysed our chances and pitfalls and presented the SWOT analysis briefly outlined below.

  • Strength

Our major strength at Way Better Ads is our detailed business plans and our collection of influencers with a very loyal fan base. Way Better Ads business plan was put together after extensive research to suit the needs of our target market and to ensure we report the progress of each advertisement campaign in real-time to provide our customers maximum flexibility. Our transparency and hunger to engage according to our SWOT Analysis will ensure success for us at WBA.

  • Weakness

We at Way Better Ads face all the risks associated with being a new business. We feel that we can overcome these with our experience in the industry and by quickly establishing desired relationships.

  • Opportunities

The booming growth of social media has led to the rise of the influencer marketing industry, which is expected to take up a $5 to 10 billion share in advertising by 2022.

This is a huge market and our SWOT analysis noted that anyone coming into this market will find it difficult to duplicate what we have because of our diversification. Once we are in the market and established, it will be difficult for someone to break into a market where someone is already operating successfully.

  • Threat

According to our SWOT analysis, the competition we will be facing to satisfy the needs of our clients will be fierce. Also, the constant change of trends and the uncertainty of social media will be a challenge to us at WBA. But we believe in our uniqueness and eagerness to become advertisement specialists, and we believe that our strengths and opportunities will help us achieve overcome these threats and many others.

7. MARKET ANALYSIS

  • Market Trend

We at WBA understand that if we fail to partner with the right influencers, all our business campaigns will be doomed to fail from the start. That is why we have a creative director saddled with the responsibility of keeping up with trends and ideas in the industry.

Also, before working with an influencer, we will review their content and compare it to others in their industry. We will also confirm that the influencer’s audience profile aligns with the demographics our clients will be targeting for campaign.

We at WBA also understand that engagement is by far the most common metric used for measuring influencer marketing success, measured by 75% of marketers for influencer marketing. The engagement rate of a post is calculated by adding up engagement (likes, comments, etc.) and dividing it by the influencer’s total number of followers.

Note that engagement rates for sponsored content will almost always be lower than on organic posts. We will also evaluate whether the influencer’s voice and aesthetic line up with our brand’s style.

We also plan to devise a means of sporting fake followers and inauthentic engagement. Although Instagram has cracked down on third party services that peddle fake followers and inauthentic engagement, but the scope and effectiveness is still in question.

In recent times, social media platforms have changed the algorithms of their users’ feeds and these algorithm changes have stirred up influencer communities. We at WBA also understand that an “always on” influencer marketing strategy refers to operating a continuous stream of branded content, rather than one-off campaigns.

Although most marketers find “always on” strategies effective, we believe that they require a lot of internal resources to maintain. We also believe that one of the most common solutions is developing long-term brand ambassador partnerships, which enables consistency and long-term brand affinity.

8. Our Target Market

Advertising is a major part of every business; you need to make people or your targeted audience know what you offer and where you offer them. With our extensive research, we have been able to state who our prospective clients will be and the best way to reach them. We have put everything into consideration and made strategies available to be able to get to them easily. A review of all of our markets is given below:

  • Small Businesses

According to reports, social media will no longer be just a marketing vehicle; it will become the backbone of a company’s business infrastructure. Companies are beginning to leverage the Internet and social media in all their business decisions. This gives them an excellent medium to raise their profile, advertise products, and recruit employees.

  • Individuals

According to reports, the booming growth of social media has led to the rise of the influencer marketing industry, which is expected to take up a $5 to 10 billion share in advertising by 2022. With over 800 million monthly active users and a daily active user base of 200 million users on Instagram Stories alone, Instagram has a far-reaching audience that contributes a massive amount of content every day.

Corporations

Almost all large U.S. and European organizations have developed corporate social media accounts or have PR departments, which use the resources and standards of the Internet to build and reach clients. Corporations have discovered that the technologies employed by the Internet, particularly the infrastructure and standards of the social media networks, is an inexpensive and powerful alternative to other forms of traditional advertising.

  • Telecommuters

Telecommuting seems to be on a steady growth curve, with over 12 million telecommuters in the U.S. today. Telecommuting will continue to grow because there are frequent references to productivity gains in the range of 15-25% for telecommuters.

  • Our competitive advantage

Manse Woods has seven years’ experience in social media marketing campaigns and five years of experience in direct marketing. He and Connor graduated from the University of Leeds with a BA in marketing. Manse worked with several advertising companies before arriving at Oji and Mark Technologies in 2012. Here, he created and grew the Internet marketing group.

Connor worked for the Internet start-up TechZone as an IT administrator. He later joined Oracle in 2010 as a technical lead of their social media campaign. In 2016, Manse joined Connor at Oracle as a creative director for its social media campaign. We at WBA believe that our edge in this competitive industry relies on the experience and contacts of Manse and Connor.

We also believe that our services will enable our clients reap the benefits of less software packages. All applications and resources needed are in one place and more can be added per user request, thus eliminating the need of purchasing individual software packages for their social media campaigns.

9. SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGY

Way Better Ads being an advertising agency, understand how important our sales and marketing strategies would be to the success of our business. That is why we trained all our employees to serve as both sales and marketing officials to our clients and also to our business.

We understand the needs of the industry and we have devised the means to fill them. We will outsource all marketing operations to Lincoln Communication Solutions because we strongly believe that they have stability and marketing channels that will be effective for our services.

The message associated with our product is value-added services. Lincoln Communication Solutions has identified a brief promotional plan that is diverse and will include a range of marketing communications including the few listed below.

  • Internet
  • Public relations
  • Trade shows
  • Industry conferences and seminars
  • Print advertising

10. Sales Forecast

We at Way Better Ads know that we are well positioned to take on the available market in advertising industry and we are quite optimistic that we will meet our set target of generating enough income/profits from the first one year of operation. We are confident that our services will be eagerly embraced by businesses and individuals. We are forecasting a 3-fold revenue increase over the years covered in this plan, as shown below:

  • First Fiscal Year: $750,000
  • Second Fiscal Year: $1,390,000
  • Third Fiscal Year: $4,050,000

Note: This sales forecast for Way Better Ads was gotten based on what is obtainable in the Advertising industry and with the belief that we will be using any threat or weakness as a stepping stone. This projection we believe can go higher or lower with time.

11. Publicity and Advertising Strategy

We at way Better Ads know exactly what we need to do to attract our clients and boost our brand awareness. With over 800 million monthly active users and a daily active user base of 200 million on Instagram Stories, we plan to focus our advertising on a select group of 50 influencers each fiscal quarter.

From concrete analysis, we estimate a 25 percent response rate to the campaign which will generate an estimated 250,000 engagement per post. These leads will then be used to generate business contacts. Listed out below are the strategies we hope to leverage on to advertise Way Better Ads;

  • We will place adverts on both print (newspapers and magazines) and electronic media platforms
  • We will also sponsor relevant community based events / programs
  • We will also make use of the internet and social media platforms like; Instagram, Facebook , twitter, YouTube, Google + et al to promote our services
  • We also plan to mount our Bill Boards on strategic locations
  • We will also distribute our fliers and handbills in target areas
  • We also plan to contact corporate organizations, non – profits and government agencies by calling them up and informing them of Way Better Ads
  • We will also list Way Better Ads in local directories / yellow pages
  • We also plan to create an official website and employ strategies that will help us pull traffic to the site
  • Ensure that all our staff members wear our branded shirts and all our vehicles are well branded with our company logo et al.

Sources of Income

We at Way Better Ads took our time to research the industry and also understand what is obtainable and what is not. One of our objectives is to become a key figure in the advertising market. We have put plans in place to achieve this within 3-5 years. We plan to generate income by offering the following advertising cum digital marketing services;

  • Conduct Survey
  • Ad Designing
  • Plan testing
  • Campaign implementation
  • Tracking the campaign’s progress in real-time
  • Instant measurability for ROI analysis
  • Post-campaign analysis
  • Other related media and advertising advisory and consulting services

12. Our Pricing Strategy

We at Way Better Ads plan to set our pricing based on competitors’ pricing. Prices will also be based on market prices for similar services. The automatic renewal and service adjustment features do not affect the price of any of our services.

We will work in conjunction with Lincoln Communication Solutions to come up with a working pricing schedule. Users will have three payment options: Monthly, Six-month payment and Yearly. Also, since the prices charged by influencers are more subjective, we will pay our influencers based on their content engagement and affinity.

Meanwhile, to attract clients, we at Way Better Ads will offer special discounted rates to all our customers at regular intervals. We believe that our initial pricing will attract customers and clients to us, and we hope to use that in boosting our brand awareness.

  • Payment Options

The need to establish varying payment methods is very important to the success of any business. We at Way Better Ads understand this and we are prepared to offer a wide range of payment methods to suit our clients. We hope to make our business dealings so simple and comfortable for our customers. We’ve also employed the use of a banking platform to help us provide all the services we will be offering below.

  • Payment by via bank transfer
  • Payment via online bank transfer
  • Payment via check
  • Payment via mobile money
  • Payment with cash

13. Startup Expenditure (Budget)

Our aim at Way Better Ads is to achieve our business goals and visions while maintaining a stable financial record. The company is seeking a moderate start-up investment. The company’s revenue projections for year one is for a 10-fold growth.

We expect to achieve profitability within six months of beginning operations. We believe that the cost of equipment we need might be the same price all over the united states, and any difference will surely be little enough to be overlooked. Outlined below is a detailed cost analysis of starting Way Better Ads;

  • Incorporating fees in the United States of America will cost – $750
  • The budget for Liability insurance, permits and license will cost – $35,000
  • Leasing/renting an office space in a good location in Alexandria, Virginia that will accommodate the number of employees for at least 6 months (Re – Construction of the facility inclusive) will cost – $150,000.
  • The cost for furnishing and equipping the office (computers, printers, projectors, markers, servers/internet facility, furniture, telephones, filing cabinets, and electronics) will cost – $30,000
  • The amount required to purchase the needed software applications – $3,500
  • Launching an official Website will cost – $500
  • Our budget for advertising and publicity – $50,000
  • The amount needed to pay influencers and staff members for at least 2 to 3 months – $70,000
  • Additional Expenditure such as Business cards, Signage, Adverts and Promotions will cost – $5,000
  • Miscellaneous – $5000

From the above cost analysis, we need about $1,400,000 to start Way Better Ads. The business we believe will grow to dominate the market and become the major stockholder in the global market.

Generating Funding/Startup Capital for Way Better Ads

Our job at Way Better Ads will be to design, create, test and deploy adequate social media strategies that will boost our clients business and help them reach their customers effectively. Way Better Ads owners Manse Woods and Bright Connor understand the growing importance of social media marketing having been experts in this field for the past decade.

We at Way Better Ads also understand the need for adequate funding and startup capital, that is why we have decided on ways to raise funds, and they include;

  • Generate part of the startup capital from personal savings and sale of his stocks
  • Generate part of the startup capital from friends and other extended family members
  • Generate part of the start up capital from the bank (loan facility).

Note: Manse Woods and Bright Connor will invest equally in the company. Way Better Ads will also secure a long-term business loan. The two founding partners have been able to raise $1,000,000 ($500,000 each), and are at the final stage of securing a loan from the bank. The documents have been submitted and the money is expected anytime soon.

14. Sustainability and Expansion Strategy

We at Way Better Ads boast a team that is up to date with the latest industry trends and applications. With this team, we feel very proud and confident that we will be a dominant player in the industry and continue to grow our base with time. We are also prepared to ensure that anyone coming into the market will find it difficult to duplicate what we have because of our diversification.

Our services will cut through the mumbo jumbo of mass marketing, increase sales, and enhance customer satisfaction. Our plan is to first understand the needs of each client and strive to create the best possible message targeted at the right crowd. We hope to exceed our customers’ expectations in the advertisement industry.

We also plan to form strategic alliances with Lincoln Communication Solutions, Zama Web, and an app developing company to be announced. We may also develop research alliances to further refine the product and adapt it to new markets in different industries. Below is an explanation of key relationships:

  • Lincoln Communication Solutions

This is a company with over fifteen years experience in marketing and promo management. We will outsource all marketing operations to Lincoln Communication Solutions because we feel that they have stability and marketing channels that will be effective for our product. This relationship will eliminate the need to develop our own marketing team.

  • Zama Web

This company creates and manages business websites on a contract basis. The company is located in Silicon Valley and boasts a Webmaster with over twelve years experience in the field. We will benefit from this relationship by having an experienced company handle all design and website management. Also, this will allow us to focus on developing social media strategies for our clients.

  • App development firm

Although a future plan of the company, we will outsource all app developments to a company to be named later.

Check List/Milestone

  • Business Name Availability Check: Completed
  • Business Incorporation: Completed
  • Opening of Corporate Bank Accounts: Completed
  • Opening Online Payment Platforms: Completed
  • Application and Obtaining Tax Payer’s ID: In Progress
  • Application for business license and permit: Completed
  • Purchase of Insurance for the Business: Completed
  • Conducting Feasibility Studies: Completed
  • Leasing, renovating and equipping our facility: Completed
  • Generating part of the startup capital from the founder: Completed
  • Applications for Loan from our Bankers: In Progress
  • Writing of Business Plan: Completed
  • Drafting of Employee’s Handbook: Completed
  • Drafting of Contract Documents: In Progress
  • Design of The Company’s Logo: Completed
  • Printing of Promotional Materials: Completed
  • Recruitment of employees: In Progress
  • Purchase of the Needed software applications, furniture, office equipment, electronic appliances and facility facelift: In progress
  • Creating Official Website for the Company: In Progress
  • Creating Awareness for the business (Business PR): In Progress
  • Health and Safety and Fire Safety Arrangement: In Progress
  • Establishing business relationship with banks, financial lending institutions, vendors and key players in the industry: In Progress